Dear distinguished speakers of the conference, dear colleagues, dear friends, it's a great pleasure to welcome you all at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. My name is Jochen Mathis, I'm the Vice Chair of the Department. And in our department at the University of Vienna, we are a research and teaching department. And what you typically have in the first semester, you have a lecture on introduction, introduction to journalism, introduction to communication science. And what students learn in this very first semester is one of the basic truisms of what we actually study. And we tell them, well, journalism is important because it holds those accountable who are in power. Journalism is important because it holds those accountable who are in power. Journalism is important because it monitors those who are in power. And finally, journalism is important because it gives a voice to those who have no power. And that's so basic. It's a truism of what we do every day and what we teach. And typically, when we teach this and when we discuss it, kind of take it for granted because we say yes sure that's absolutely agreed upon, there's no doubt about that, let's move to the next slide. But is it taken for granted? And that's the question that we're going to address and apparently that's not an easy question and we are very grateful that you are attempting to answer this question and contributing to the answer to this question today and also in your work, in your everyday work. And we are very grateful for that. So I wish you all a very fruitful discussion, an insightful conference. I think the stage is set for all of this. I think there's a great program. There's coffee outside. I've already tested it. It's good. And you can even do skiing after the conference in the streets of Vienna, if you wish to do so. So that being said, I wish you thank you so much, everyone, for coming. Thank you again for the distinguished panel, two surface panelists. Thanks everyone who was involved in organizing this conference. everyone for coming. Thank you again for the distinguished panel, to serve as panelists. Thanks everyone who was involved in organizing this conference. It's an important topic for us and I'm very much looking forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jörg. It's wonderful to know that you are still some more years in the leading team of this department. I'm already out of this department, not completely, but hereby completely. And it's good to be out there now because we have a lot to do in our organization, Ready Reporters Without Borders. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of this organization, of the organizer, I'm really delighted that you have come here today. Nevertheless, the weather is so wonderful outside and sometimes you have the feeling it's maybe necessary to use it for a long walk through the snow. As long as the snow is so white as it is, you know, usually in the big countries it doesn't be a long period. But the political challenge is serious, sorry to say. A year ago negotiations were held here in Vienna on the federal government led by the right-wing populist, extreme right-wing, FPÖ party. This party sees Hungary's situation as the future of Austria. So let's talk, let's take a close look at that. And let us also look at other neighboring countries such as Slovakia and Czechia during today's exchange of experiences. The aim is to support on side, democratic independent journalism there, but it is also about making our own journalism more resistant to weakening and destruction. When we look at our own history, we can be certain at least one thing. Authoritarian or fascist regimes lead always to the death of journalistic media. Always. Reporters Without Borders International was founded in France 40 years ago. We celebrated this last autumn. And the Austrian Section was founded 28 years ago. And what we know in our organization, what our big mission is is defending and strengthening press freedom that's our main topic today more than ever before we have to fight it, of course, worldwide. Unfortunately, several European countries have also become places of increasingly fierce conflict over free information. When we invited Thibault Coudin, the Director General of RSF International, to Vienna a year ago to support us against the threat of the FPO government, he said Austria is now becoming a battleground for free journalism. As we all know, our weapons for free journalism are words, arguments, networking, and cooperation. With this in mind, I wish our short conference every success. I would like to thank everyone who is participating with such commitment. I would like to thank the Austrian Society for Political Education for its financial support. I would like to thank the department of the University of Vienna for its active cooperation, especially the board members Sabine Henriler and Jörg Mathis, as well as the organization team Maike Müller and Martina Winkler. And I would like to express my sincere thanks to our Secretary General Martin Wassermeyer for his impressive organization. Thank you and at last thank you to Oskar Kroetho, who is producing again a video to see some days later, some weeks later, what our findings will be now in the next hours. I hereby declare the conference open and hand over to my colleague on the board, Barbara Todt, who has kindly agreed to moderate. Thank you, Barbara. Yes, thank you, Georg, thank you, Fritz. My name is Barbara Todt and I'm also delighted to be your host for the next two hours. First, I would like to introduce our experts. They come from various, as Fritz put it, battlegrounds of journalism. I start with Edith Innotall. She works for the German public broadcaster ARD and the investigative news site BaikN Insights in Budapest. And she is a board member of the Budapest-based think tank Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy. Thank you for coming, Edith. Thank you very much. Next to her sits Beata Baloghova, coming from Bratislava. She is an award-winning journalist. From 2015 to 2025, she was editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily newspaper and news website SME. And currently, she is chief commentator there. Beate, nice that you are here. Thank you. Next to her sits Pavla Holzova. She came from Prague. She is an investigative journalist and founder of the independent news portal Investigatze.cz. She has contributed to major cross-border projects known here, of course, like Panama Papers or Pegasus Project, Pandora Papers and the Russian Asset Tracker. Pavla, thank you for coming. Thank you. You can give some middle applause. And then we have Antoine Bernal. He came from Paris. I'd say France is not such a battleground for press freedom, but maybe you will have some ads on this. Antoine is a lawyer and director of advocacy and litigation at the Partners Without Borders International. So he's the chief legislation genius there. And he played a key role for RSF in the development of the UE Media Freedom Act. Antoine, nice that you are here. Thank you very much. So, we thought that we would like to start with a short input as a first round. I would like to ask you, Edith, to start and we would like to go in this direction. Just give us a brief presentation about the situation of press freedom in your countries. And we thought we start with Hungary, because Hungary is somehow the most advanced country, not in a positive sense, of course. And after the first round, I would open the discussion here between us, but also we would like to engage with you. So at any time you have questions or would like to add a comment, just give us a sign and we will come to you. So we have a very interactive afternoon here. So, Elit, please, if you would like to start. Thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here in this very nice winterly setting i was not expecting that um but um you know a good journalist has to uh has to adapt to the situation um so um i'm a little bit an odd person here because i do not work for the hungarian domestic anymore. I had 20 plus years working as a journalist in Hungary. Right now I work for foreign outlets but I do have kind of an overview and also an experience in Hungary. So let me just start the conversation with challenging you with a couple of questions. I would like to have an idea how much you know about Hungary and the media situation. Do you know if there is any journalist murdered in Hungary? Anybody who thinks there was a journalist murdered in Hungary, hands up. In 1682. Well, we have experts in the panel. Okay, any journalist jailed in Hungary? Is there censorship in Hungary? And is there still free media in Hungary? Okay, so let me give you the good news here, okay? There is no journalist, there has been no journalist murdered in Hungary. I think Barbara will probably talk about Skurczak in her presentation. So we didn't go that far at the moment. There are no journalists jailed in Hungary. And there is no censorship. That's a surprise, yeah? There is no censorship. There are other more subtle methods of the government which I will highlight a bit later. And there is still free media in Hungary, quite a number of free new sites, especially in the online sphere. And interestingly, they do have some effect on politics. And I will talk about that a little bit later. So the picture is, I mean, that's the rosy side of the picture. And then I will let you know what happened in the last 16 years, which is a long time and which transformed completely the Hungarian media into a only partially free media in a kind of hybrid hybrid political system. So Viktor Orban was elected with a two thirds majority or actually two thirds majority in the parliament in 2010. For those of you who are kind of not born at that time, but maybe later, he was already in power before, between 1998 and 2002. And it's important to highlight that when he was defeated in 2002, he kind of made the media as the basic scapegoat for his defeat. He believed that he did a reasonably okay job in government for four years, and the main reason why he was defeated was the liberal leftist critical media. And he basically swore that when he ever gets back to power, he will first start with the media and, you know, take the media and bring the media under control, especially the leading newspaper, Nebsabachat, where I used to work at that time. And so it happened, because Nebsabachat was actually shut down by the government or by government-aligned Austrian financial investor in 2016. But, so Orban got into power in 2010 and he started right away with a new media law with establishing a media council which is responsible for licenses for for mergers and you know any control on the media landscape and he took complete control of the public media i think we will probably talk about the public media and the importance of the public media later. It's interesting that all those populist parties have kind of a fixation on the public media and they want to control it because the public media can reach all kinds of people, all age groups, all kind of you know regional small villages. So Fidesz got control of the public media, they purged it and they turned it into basically a propaganda machine. The consequence is that very few people watch the public media right now in Hungary. Nevertheless, the older generation in villages is still an important information source. And then what he also did, he took control of the National News Agency, which is I think fundamental if you want to control the news on the source. And unfortunately many small media outlets at that time applauded to that because it was made free so you didn't have to pay any fee to the news agency it seemed like a great idea because you know most newspapers or media outlets just didn't have the money so they thought that's fine we will get the news free but there is no free lunch obviously there was a price to be paid. And the price is that that news is no longer independent. This news is flyers. There are rumors, I have never worked for the media or the news agency, but I had colleagues who worked there and there was this rumor that certain news items which had to do with the prime minister's family had to be sent over to a specific channel to be allowed for publication or not allowed. So this is where we can come back to the question of censorship. So obviously there is no clear censorship, there is no office which would censor the news, but the news that comes out of the news agency is pretty much filtered. What happened? Many media decided not to use the news agency anymore, which means you have to be on the ground, you have to send journalists everywhere in the country, you have to get your own news and do not rely on the agencies. That requires a lot of manpower and a lot of resources. Not many of the newspapers have the possibility of that. newspapers have the possibility of that. So after Orbán took control of these two or three assets, then he turned against the print media. It was already a difficult time for the print media after the financial crisis, after the global economic crisis, and many foreign companies were just moving out of the country. Hungary or the Hungarian media landscape was largely dominated by German investors. Most of those decided in like the mid 2010 to leave the country because they were no longer able to generate the profits they had previously. And they simply sold those newspapers to those entrepreneurs who paid them more. And who were those entrepreneurs? Obviously those who had the state money or the government money or the taxpayers' money basically. So government-closed entrepreneurs took over many of those good newspapers. One case, I thought I will bring you like three specific cases just to highlight what happened. One case was a very good news site called Oracle in the beginning of 2000, I think it was in 14. That was an independent news site, probably the most read at that time. It was owned by Deutsche Telekom. They reported on a minister of the Orban government going on a foreign trip with a secretary, staying in very expensive hotels and having the taxpayers foot the bill. In a normal democratic country, what would have been the consequence? Probably the minister would have stepped down. What happened in Hungary? The minister stayed, actually he's a running mate of Orbán right now, the elections, he's called Janos Laza. But the newspaper or the news site was quickly sold by Deutsche Telekom, which wanted to maintain good relations with the government, to a pro-government proxy and turned into probably the most disgusting pro-government propaganda channel right now in Hungary. It still exists, of course people left, but they could still hire people who were willing to parent government propaganda. So they are still there, completely different approach. The second case is my former newspaper, Nilsa Batschak, which was already targeted by Orban right from the beginning. The paper published a big investigation about the minister taking a helicopter to a private wedding. This was a huge scandal. Two days afterwards the paper was suspended. The paper was already owned by this Austrian financial investor, you probably know the name, Heinrich Bettina, who was I think also indicted in other cases. He just informed the journalist on a Saturday morning by courier that they don't have to go to the office on Sunday or Monday because the paper is suspended just from one day to another. And the third case, which is an interestingly positive development, the case of index which was then the leading online newspaper in 2020 which was also taken over by government close investors they wanted to keep that in the background but they couldn't and the whole staff rebelled they walked out and they left the news site. New people had to be hired and the people of Index established a completely new news site which is called Telex HU, which is probably one of the leading news sites in Hungary. So it's possible to make good and independent journalism. It takes a lot of courage, it takes effort, and it also takes very creative financial setting, crowdfunding, EU funds. It's not an easy job, but it's possible. So I think I will stop at this positive development and then we can talk about some details later and of course if you have questions we will do that after the colleagues also contributed thank you edit um for laying out the playbook the perfect playbook how to um get the power over the media in one country with all the assets you mentioned. Beate, now I think we're very curious to hear how Slovakia, in which chapter of this playbook Slovakia currently is. Actually, I want to thank you for being interested in the media situation in our countries. I remember two years ago I had conversations with Austrian journalists and they had this gas-fueled empathy. They were listening to me, they felt sorry, but they felt it doesn't concern them that much what I am explaining them about the media situation in Slovakia. And now I can understand that it concerns Austria very much so. At the beginning of the year, my colleague, 70 years old commentator, Peter Schutz, a crime man, was beaten up at the public toilet. And he was beaten up in a way that he broke his thigh bone. He had to undergo surgery and he wasn't able to work for three weeks. This is happening eight years after the murder of Jan Kuciak. The policeman investigated the beating of Peter Schultz, they told him, what a pity that you didn't stay sick longer, by three weeks, because now we have to qualify this as misdemeanor, not as crime. And that was the main message he received. And our politicians, when they commented on the beating and the vicious attack, they actually said, oh, we are sorry, but he provoked it. Because Peter Schutz is known for using very expressive language, and he really gets on the nerves of politicians. Eight years after the murder of our colleagues the case is still not closed. We still don't know, the courts actually do, but the courts have not said who ordered the murder and the whole case returned to the Basic Court. Robert Witzel, our Prime Minister, who at the time Marianne was murdered, he had to step down. And it's a trauma he carries since then. And this year, when talking about the murder of the journalist, he actually suggested that he saw in the Epstein files references that the step down was planned, that basically someone planned the whole thing just to bring down his government. This really shows, and the reason why I'm mentioning it is because this shows the government's relationship to facts and misinformation. And that's one of the main frontiers journalists are being attacked, is the denial of facts as such and Robert Fico elevating the misinformation channels to the level of media. He's not answering questions to the major news sites, He hasn't given interview to my newspaper in 15 years. And when our colleagues are asking questions, he just say, thank you, next question. Or he says, I'm not talking to a media owned by George Soros, or I'm not talking to the media who worked on, who actually inspired my assassination. Because Robert Fitzel was assassinated. Almost. He survived, but he used the assassination to actually put pressure on the media and he several times suggested that it was the hate that media spread around him that actually provoked the SS team to try to kill Robert Winslow. And this narrative is so much present in the whole public discourse that basically the governmental office started a campaign that lets respect other opinions. They paid so much money into advertising this campaign. And the point of the campaign is when we tell about you that you are a black thirsty bastard, it's opinion, but then you criticize the government for stealing EU money, that's hate. And so this is the first frontier. And while Slovakia is very vulnerable to Russian hybrid warfare, Russian propaganda outlets, Russian hybrid warfare, Russian propaganda outlets. So this makes the population quite receptive to all the misinformation they are receiving. On the second frontier on which Robert Fico is affecting the press, it's of course the public service media, but it's not even in use in Slovakia. In Slovakia, over the past 30 years, there were more than 21 director generals of public service television. Whenever the government changed, the leadership of the public service television changed. So Robert Fitzhaw, that was the easiest job for him. He took over the public service television. And when we had conversations with representatives of the European Union bodies, I always explained that it's not enough to look at the laws, how laws about the public service are formulated, because it's through nominations. The public service media is taken over not by laws that allow the crooks to walk into the public service building, media building, but by nominations. And that's the way Robert Fitzhaw did it. The board of the public service television, which is today a state television, the nominees are completely coming from the ruling parties. There is no opposition nominee on the board of the Slovak television. They, to circumvent the rule and also the European Media Freedom Act, Vse pravijo, da je vse to, kar je vse to, kar je vse to, kaj je vse to. In tudi Evropski medijski sredstveni vodnik, ki reče, da ne lahko pripovedujejo predstavnika, kjer je vse to, kaj je vse to, kaj je vse to. In tako so razvijali institucijo. Zame so pripovedili, da je to nov institucijski vodnik in da lahko pripovedujemo svojega predstavnika. appoint our director. Now the new general director is the daughter of the co-founder of the ruling party, Smer, who also has ownership in one of the disinformation channels. So you can imagine her mental state and her relationship to truth and fact checking and these things. This is a curse because over the years, the best journalists left the public service television. While you would imagine that the public service media is there to nurture the best of the best, in Slovakia it's no longer true. And even if tomorrow there is a new management in the public service media, my colleagues, because SMEG took on board a lot of journalists who led the public service media, they wouldn't return because they say there is no stability in the public service media. The next frontier on which Robert Fico attacks the press is the pressure on private media. The next frontier on which Robert Fico attacks the press is the pressure on private media and he can do so because some private media has owners who have investments in areas that the state is interested in. Maybe the most prominent example is the private broadcaster Markiza, the biggest private television channel and it's owned by Czech PBF group. They have investment in banking sector, road toll collection and energy. Robert Fitzel quite openly said he didn't even try to make it sound softer, he said that he would withdraw state advertisement from the television station if they don't do good journalistic job. Good journalistic job means you don't criticize the Prime Minister. And as a consequence several people left television Markiza and Markiza is changing very slowly. So if you watch one day their prime time news you wouldn't notice much but if you follow it like month after month you see those subtle changes. If you follow it month after month, you see those subtle changes. For example, they changed the order of the news. Now they start with puppies and horses and celebrity news. And the political news starts after all this news is basically done. And they also give less space to opposition politicians. While there is no need to mention that in the public or the state television, opposition media is basically just formally addressed. So when there is a topic, they basically call ruling coalition politicians as experts, even to comment on issues they have no idea about. Or let's say energy or environment or healthcare. Politicians are called in because they serve as a propaganda channel. Then of course, Robert Fico is putting pressure on private media, the former print press and online press by trying to describe as irrelevant, as connected to foreign forces, and suggesting to our readers that we are corrupted. And as I mentioned, he's not answering our questions. We have a list of ministries who are completely ignoring us. Even when we use FOIA, so we basically submit an information request, they use the maximum deadline to respond and they respond in a way that please complete your request because we don't understand your question. So if you are reporting about a hot news and you would need answers maximum in 24 hours, you have to wait two weeks to get the answer that, sorry, your request has been denied. Very often they say that it's a state secret. They say that it's private information. So basically, they try to hinder our job as journalists. Then, another area in which, it's not the frontier of Robert Fico, but it's a big problem, and it's media ownership. In Slovakia, the toxic investment group Penta, which was indicated in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country, they started buying newspapers after this corruption scandal erupted and last year they managed to purchase the last big tabloid newspaper. tabloid newspaper. The sale was very suspicious but the Supreme Audit Office didn't even evaluate the merger because it said that the law was so formalistic that it didn't have a legal ground to assess that purchase. And, and now Penta is the owner of the biggest public papers. I have a personal story with Penta because in 2014, they forced themselves into our publishing house. The German publisher set a price, 15 million, and Penta was willing to pay. So they left Slovakia because they felt that the newspaper business wasn't profitable enough. And so that's when Penta tried to capture my newspaper and I can report that I'm a survivor because Daily Sme actually survived the entry of Penta. They were in a minority position fortunately, but by that entry they produced another independent newspaper because on that day when they entered my newspaper, more than half of the newsroom of SME said that they are not staying and 50 people left and they established another independent daily, DěníkN, and they are still there, they are strong and just recently DěníkN bought EU Observer, a site in Brussels, so they are making even investments abroad. So unlike in Hungary, private media never depended on state advertisement. And that was the lesson we learned under the government of Vladimir Medvedev. And SMAC, we have never really had any substantial state advertisement. So we don't have to worry from that fits of the size that he's not giving us money. Because we learn to live on subscriptions and newspaper sales and web sales and advertisement. Thank you, Beate. I took notes. State ads and dependency, that's something in Austria is quite an important frontier. We have to think about that. So we have in Hungary and Slovakia, we have Orban and Ficu, leaders who do not respect the press. We have control over public media. We have private press under pressure. And do you also have in Slovakia, like in Hungary, control over the national news media? Because that's what I... The agency. The agency? It's formally, we say not, but the budget is controlled by the government and the national news agency has always been very... Not very independent. No, it wasn't very independent. And the media council in Hungary was installed? Do you have something like that in your mind? Yes, we have. And it's only formally independent because the government also made changes and what I suggested that it's taken over by nominations. Because by the law and also because of the European Media Freedom Act, the media council should be independent. But now out of nine members, six members we can identify as linked to Parti Smer or Penta or those players who are not in favor of independent press. So that's my checklist. Pabla, now I'm very curious to hear what is the situation in the Czech Republic with Babiš, who is not in favor of free press either. Yeah. So as in other parts of the world, also we have someone who was ruling the country then lost election and then then came back in full rage and really for vendetta and replaced competent people with on incompetent but loyal um so uh last year in october we elections and the elections it was won by Andrei Babish who is now prime minister and he was forced, he was not forced, he made political coalition with two very weird parties. So right now we have really very special government. The prime minister is actually a Slovak. Then we have, and he's making the coalition with party that is called car drivers. And then a Nazi party that's led by Japanese guy. So, you know, we can't really do any kind of satire on politics because it's already there and they are actually ruling the country. And you know they just started and they are especially those people who are from the car drivers party they were never politicians they don't have any political education and they are just pranksters well it seems they are. But they do control Ministry of Culture that controls media. And they have these really crazy ideas, and the prime minister is supporting it, unfortunately. And one is that's actually already in process, both Hungary and Slovakia and this is Foreign Agent Act. And when there was the first press conference of the new government, they said they are going to enforce so-called FARA law or foreign agent law in Czech Republic. And when they were asked if they can give any example what people should imagine they are going to do, they said it's because of me. And I was like, because of me? And because of political NGOs. So I became a political NGO. And they said it would mean that those political NGOs wouldn't get any state subsidies. Well, we don't. Wouldn't get any state advertisement. Well, we don't. And we will make them, you know, make public the information who are their donors. Well, it's on our website. So, you know, it sounds all like a joke, but definitely we are following the steps of Hungary and Slovakia in trying, the government is really trying to push on media, to better control media. even there's discussion that public broadcaster that was always independent should not be independent by the way that they would cancel this special fee of every citizen to follow public broadcasters they would cancel it and it would be paid by state budget. What means the public broadcaster, radio and TV are going to be totally independent on the decision of politicians. And the other problem we have, it's so-called oligarchization of media. Only couple of years ago our prime minister, Andrej Babiš, he was a big owner, not only of the biggest industry, but also of the biggest media house in the Czech Republic. And he was pretty much using his media to fire ministers, you know, to mock someone and so on. He was forced by EU to sell the media but he sold the media to arms dealer and they made this kind of a silent pact about not attacking each other. So also other media are now owned by different oligarchs like PPF Financial Group or Daniel Kretinsky who owns also shares in Le Monde in France and in Paris and owns British Post Office and owns a huge energy sector in Slovakia. And the problem is he owns the biggest and most red tabloid in Czech Republic. What means he's really able to push the information he needs to a lot of people who don't have really critical mindset when they are reading the news. So this is pretty much the situation. We still have one independent weekly, one independent daily and many independent small online outlets like is mine. But we are on a way to actually give up public broadcasters to the government and and we already had given up many of the dailies and national wild TV stations sold to oligarchs and for my checklist of how bad is it National News Agency control over that no that's independent and somehow they are not really doing anything hard hitting they are pretty much translating voters and pushing it to check media okay thank you very much so antoine it's up to you um you are monitoring the situation um in and worldwide, of course. So what is your point of view when you hear these three situations? And how much influence from the United States can you sense? Barbara, we see the situation, and I'm not a specialist of the respective countries as we are, so you ask me to try to fly high and get a bigger picture, I'm not too high. The analysis we do about the stress and oppression in the world is very valid for Europe. We consider it's a crisis moment, we consider it's a moment for protection crisis. We see in the World Press Freedom Index in 2024 was highlighting that there is a protection crisis for many governments including within the EU who don't take the responsibility to actually protect, guarantee, press for them. We have those major cases from the ECOJAC, and actually the collaboration is small, right? Yes. To Daphne, Caroline, Aditya, Georgis, etc. in Greece, etc. Those cases remain wide open. There has been no accountability to date. Those eight years, nine years remaining wide open. That's classical. Second crisis is a crisis of media sustainability. There is weakening of the economic situation. The renewal of the practices and the business model is not fast enough to resist that crisis. The third crisis is a crisis of trust with the public and the audience. And the fourth crisis is the tech crisis, which derives from what we see on our algorithm at every minute, those business models that favor disinformation, propaganda, doubt, uncertainty, fear, gain, whatever, but, trustworthy sources of information. So all this is not new, but it comes to a moment of acceleration. And maybe the key word for this question is confusion. I would say. Confusion not because we're being confused. Confusion because confusion is being pushed to us. It's being pushed to us. You're asking about US influence? I mean, on the day following the election of Trump, we all remember that tweet from Elon Musk. Now you are the media. Confusion. We all have in mind how much free speech is put forward as the alpha and omega of everything, or at the minimum freedom of expression. And I think this deserves a little moment of our own brainstorming. Are we all defenders of free speech? Of course! Of freedom of expression? Of course? Of law. Of legal expression? Of course. Of Christendom? Of course. But we need to be much more specific than this. Much more. Opinion is not information. We want our freedom of opinion. But we want to self-determine based on facts to have access to whichever trustworthy source of information that is editorially independent. Just have the choice, have access. This model of confusion is pushed to a maximum. Yesterday was announced the launch soon by the State Department of this new website. You heard of it? The wording is fantastic of the homepage. It's really the... So it will look like this. Okay, it says here, freedom is coming. The word freedom is hidden because it's censored. So to overcome censorship, freedom will be coming. And the best sign is information is power. Reclaim your human rights to freedom of expression. Get prepared. That, yeah, information, freedom of expression, prestige, total confusion. You're a citizen. You're not informed. You're not, even ourselves, when we look at First Amendment, we all have to go back to it and see, and freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. We have to go back into the history of the First Amendment to understand that there is an articulation that maybe freedom of speech was the mainstream claim, but that there are two notions here, not one, and we know that freedom of the press and journalism means cross-checking, rectification, protection of sources, accountability. This is not any individual to be a journalist, precedent means that so confusion is really the key moment now actually in all what you said and Barbara I'm sorry it's coming to France I'm very sorry that's true so so all what you said the same recipe the same wording basically Basically you are, and we are, and we are, the ones who violate freedom of expression, the ones who practice censorship, the ones who are not independent or impartial because we would receive some sort of funding, the ones who defend public service media, meaning we're leftists, the ones who... I mean, all this, frankly, we see it coming exactly the same way, at least as far as RSF is attacked, from Moscow, DC, and CNews in France. CNews is basically, you know, the Fox News, GD News, all those type of news that pretend to be information media, that in fact are opinion media, but get in claim the protection of the law for being information media and are doing very strong advocacy. So fall crisis, confusion added to that disinformation, propaganda including war propaganda and phony and foreign informational interference that is propagating throughout the EU. And I'm not speaking here of the foreign alleged foreign nation, I'm speaking of actual false information that is being maliciously propelled to achieve a certain goal which is very easy to achieve which is casting that in democracy so that that's really the situation I can develop more recently I mean three weeks ago, we were summoned at RSF in a parliamentary commissioning investigation on public service of individual media, created by far-right parties, and they won. I mean, it's ongoing, but at least they won a bit. You know why? As far as Arasaf is concerned, because our president, who is 72, when he was 14 years old, was sympathetic to left-wing activism movement. 14 years old, he's 72. This is what was put in the table, the question during the debate in the French Parliament. Because Arasaf has received a Soros funding years ago, that at the time when we received it was 0.001% of our resources on that year, yet Soros, we know that by heart, is fucking hungry. Because I could take that type of thought, which is really total nonsense, but it was just enough, because pronounced in Parliament, to be encapsulated in a short video for the capsule on Twitter, it could be encapsulated and debated in the CDU's TV channel, the one that does opinion and that propels hate and an extreme right-wing agenda. So I have a few ideas on what's next and what to do, but I think that's the next round of questions, right? Right, of course, please go ahead. You mentioned the United States and how it influences our media that the Orban Victor was much ahead of anyone in the United States. And when I attended last year some discussions with American colleagues, they still were saying that by doing really good journalism and sticking to journalistic rule, we can make it. And this is the misunderstanding because I completely agree that this transcends the limits of journalism we are facing. I mean, in Hungary, the situation is not as such because Hungarian colleagues did a substandard job. I mean, press is not threatened in Slovakia because we are not able to follow journalistic rules or we are not able to investigate. That's why it makes me angry when anyone offers us training in how to do investigative journalism and fortunately some NGOs woke up, but this was happening for years towards Slovakia and Hungary and the Czech Republic. So that's the thing that you no longer can find these influences simply by journalistic tools and by trying to do your job as perfectly as you are able to because those are not related. That's what I think. Okay, thank you very much. as you are able to, because those are not really that so bad. Okay, thank you very much. So you would say Orban, it's Trump who learned from Orban and not the other way around, to the podium as a question? Well, they all learn from each other. I mean, Erdogan is also a great master of propaganda, Erdogan is also a great master of propaganda, Putin, and the main driver of that type of propaganda is the search for enemies and making the press look like the one which is easily bought and which is always conspiring with foreign forces so the press is never inside the country or it's inside but it is the channel for foreign influences and that that narrative is everywhere and and the And the thing is that what Trump actually can cause, and his influence is that he legitimizes insults and verbal attacks against journalists. And you know, like quiet piggy, if Trump says that to a journalist, it means that Robert Fico appears like a very polite man when he says that we are George Soros, we are swines of George Soros. Maybe just one sentence to that. I think we talk a lot about the media, but usually it's not only about the media. The media is just the first step for all those autocratic or authoritarian parties or governments. It's about undermining trust in democratic institutions. And one is the media. And then it goes on to the courts, to the independent institutions or independent authorities. And when you undermine trust successfully in a country, in democracy, then you can come as a strong man to save the country from all kinds of dangers and threats. And I think that's the ultimate goal. That okay, we undermine the system, we weaken democracy, and then we come as the saviors. But that's pure Russian propaganda and the Russian way of thinking. And this is what's happening. In the second round, I would like to focus on solution and counter strategies because I think we've heard the playbook, the status quo, it's pretty much clear. But before we go on, Erhard Stacke, you would like to pose a question? Concerning Czechoslovakia, Exactly eight years ago, on February 21st, 2018, Jan Pucek and his family were murdered. And there were huge demonstrations, and it lasted for a long time. Later on, I have seen public opinion boards showing that the public broadcasting system in Slovakia was quite popular, and people had confidence in it, more so than in other Central European countries. Where is the civil society now? The way you told us the story, it seems it was quite easy for FITO and his group to take over. And where is the mass protest? How do people react to this development? Maybe civil society is one point for counter-strategies, right? The strength of civil society. Fortunately, the civil society still leads and we still have protests. But what happened in Slovakia that after the murder there was really that energy and will for change and that was a change but politically that change was abused because we had Igor Matovic who won and he was the someone who arrived the anti-corruption wave and he was given trust but it turned out that he wasn't able to rule the country he he had a lot of traits similar to robert fitzo he was an egomaniac so his government was the government of chaos and so it really undermined the trust chaos and so it really undermined the trust in politics as such and it really harmed Slovakia. Right now even though Robert Fico is hostile but we can see that he is not as strong as as he could be under you know circumstances of Hungary. He has a very frail majority in parliament. He's not able to pass all the laws he wants. The constitutional court already stopped the effectiveness of some of the laws, for example, against the civil society. So we see that the institutions, there are still some healthy institutions. But you are right, like that energy and that hope was abused politically. And I believe that now again, there is a view for change. And that's why the side is very polarized and that's why it it's we put much pressure on opposition parties to learn from the mistakes because it was actually an opposition party which which wasn't able to to take the power and and to use it for for good. And that's why I often think about Hungary and there were many comparisons of Igor Matovic to Peter Magyar, the challenger of Orbán. And that is something that will show, even if Orbán is defeated, that's just the first step. And in Slovakia, we were not able to make those further steps towards change. Thank you. So in the second round, I would like to, because we talked a lot about like institutions and we had a high flying view on it. And now I would like to hear from you, about your daily work, your daily business. How is it to work under these circumstances? Check, recheck, double check, things we usually do. How do you do it when the prime minister is not answering you or is even calling you out at press conferences? How can you maintain the journalistic standards? at press conferences. How can you maintain the journalistic standards? Maybe you can give us some tips also for future Austrian journalists. I'm afraid I'm not gonna be good at that because what we are experiencing in Hungary is that the government is just not talking to critical media, and not even foreign media. So I can send all kinds of inquiries into the ministries and usually there is no answer, none, none at all. So they have the press departments of the ministries don't have telephone numbers anymore. So you can't call them. There is an email address, you send an inquiry, and then you wait, and then you wait, and then you wait. The story is long over, and they will not answer you. It's very funny, I used to be a foreign policy journalist. Most of the people in the foreign ministry still know me. That's one of the few cases when you can call so I call them they are very nice and say yes yes I see your email with its being it's being taken care of don't worry about it they will assure me and then nothing happens nothing so I I'm not sure whether they are giving orders not to answer, or it's just the easier way not to do anything because then you don't risk giving a bad answer. So it's, you know, you don't have information. So you have to depend on leaks or personal contacts. And interestingly, as we are moving closer to the election in April, there are more and more leaks coming out. A recent case was a large investigation was just published by Telex, this leading Internet news site about environmental and labor safety breaches by Samsung, a South Korean battery company close to Budapest. We all knew about those cases, that they, you know, blatantly breached all kinds of environmental norms, because that was reported by another investigative news site before. But now, it was leaked that the government was perfectly aware of all those breaches. I don't know who leaked that, but there are certain documents showing that it was an issue in a government meeting, which I, by the way, also kept secret. So there is nobody who keeps records of the government meetings. That's also an innovation of the Orban government. I mean, previously there were some kind of, you know, notes that you could follow what the government was talking about. Now we don't have that. So, I mean, those documents were leaked and it's a huge scandal because apparently a government which portrays itself as sovereign as its government, you know, defending Hungarian interests, is basically serving the interests of a South Korean big company and risking the health of Hungarian and, of course, also foreign workers who worked at this battery factory. So that's kind of a big paradox. The government is denying that, obviously, and they say it's fake news, just like what Barbara said. So there's the same way of reactions. Everything which is critical, it's fake news and we will sue you. But mostly the courts will decide for the newspapers in most of the cases. It's very interesting. So the government is not winning very many cases at courts. So I think what we can have is still keep up with personal connection to people who can provide us with news and go out, talk to local people, do good reporting on the ground. And this is basically our job. And it's interesting that we talk about how we cannot hold politicians accountable, yet even in Hungary, in those 16 years of Orban, media could topple two presidents. So it was after HBG, a business news site, published a story on a plagiarism scandal of a former president of Hungary Paul Schmitt. He was forced to step down in 2012 and just two years ago another scandal published by 444 HU led to the stepping down of the president Katalin Novak who was like a big star of Fidesz and Descartes like a big you know the hope of Fidesz and she was forced to step down because she signed she granted pardon to a man who was kind of concealing a pedophilia case. So it's interesting that even in Hungary, when we say, you know, we cannot reach anything, we cannot hold the government accountable, it's still possible. Not to the extent which would be desirable, but there are still cases which you can work on and which can have an effect. So, you know, my advice would be never give up and, you know, do your job and maybe even cooperate with colleagues in neighboring countries. But there is a chance to have an effect and then we'll see what happens after the elections. That's a different case. happens after the elections you know that's that's a different case i like that you always give a positive outlook um pavla we we heard um personal connections leaks that are things that work fine especially if you if you when you're working as an investigative journalist but um personal connections need time to grow you have to be experienced you have to be in the business for a couple of years so what about the next generation of journalists can they be as critical and as well informed what what is your experience in Czech Republic? My experience is probably different because I usually report on organized crime you know sometimes there's overlap with politics, but I don't do reporting on politics as my daily job, so I don't really care if I am let in on a press conference or not. Or if I got, you know, I can have the time to actually wait for the official answer from the FOIA request. But yes, the new generation, they believe that investigative reporting is mostly done by getting information from someone and publishing it. And then they are surprised that they need to really build a story around it. it and then they are surprised that they need to really build a story around it. How the job is done today, at least in the editorial team I'm running, is that we, at the beginning, we got a name. It's a name of a company or name of a person and then we need to build a story around it. And here personal connections or talking to the sources could be really tricky, because we never know if there is more than just a business connection of those people. So when we actually approach the sources and before we actually approach the people we are writing about, we should know the answers and we should know the answers preferably not by someone telling us but some paper trail. So, you know, the new generation starts to learn it, but I think it does have solution and that we should be more aware of the situation of other journalists and we should more cooperate. I mean, like, if I am not let in to a press conference, I can ask a colleague from a friendly media to ask my questions. And they should take it and ask those questions. And then, you know, that's how to bypass the wall. But we really need to change the mindset from competing with each other to cooperating with each other. Because we are seen as an enemy in general as a journalist. Not as a, you know, sometimes some of the journalists are singled out. But we should really be aware that we as a journalist, we have a lot of power once we cooperate. You've been singing out, I think it's a very important point, solidarity among colleagues in situations like that. Beate, also in Slovakia there's been slap litigation and also personal attacks, especially also on you. So how do you do your daily work or does the younger generation does their daily work? I actually have an easy job because my colleagues from Falter ask me the question of what would be advices for journalists in Austria to counter that media culture. And one thing that is actually quite important is not to become a reactive media. And I know it's very tempting to respond to everything, to what the prime minister said, to every single effect. And that's the purpose purpose to control the public discourse and I think for media it's very important to open your own topics and try to push the topics you feel are important for the society and it's getting more and more difficult because we are all somehow in that spiral of trying to debunk misinformation, trying to correct all the lies and tell the readers that the prime minister is lying. But we need to learn to set a limit to that and that was a tough job even when I was an editor-in-chief I remember I started my day trying to think okay what is the story of the day and when my colleague said that oh Prime Minister Robert Fico had a video on Facebook and he said this and that and I said no that's not the story of the day. And I think that this is something very important. Then another important issue is try to resist the elevation of the language because the language of the politicians are getting more and more aggressive. And I noticed, for example, in Hungary, that some of the commentaries grew very aggressive. Some vulgar words are completely acceptable now in the Hungarian media. And what would I try to explain to my colleagues that try to avoid that. It doesn't mean that the readers won't react. It doesn't mean that you won't be able to evoke feelings anymore. And it's very tough. I'm writing commentaries and I know how difficult it is to resist the urge to say strong words. Then, as Paula very correctly said, that you can do much, even at press conferences, if Robert Fico is not answering question of one journalist, the second can ask, or the third. And if the press conference is being dissolved because Robert Fico feels that you conspired against him, that's okay. But basically saying the question is sometimes the answer. And what I tell my colleagues, think very well about the questions you are asking because you get one chance to ask a question and if you screw it up and your question won't be understandable or you will spend your time on formal questions, you are wasting the time of the whole journalistic community. You ask about attacks. That's the tough thing. And I think that the solution is to talk about it. the moment when I first told my colleagues that I'm taking antidepressants because of panic panic attacks actually several of my colleagues came to my office and they said I'm so grateful you talk about it because I'm having panic attacks as well and mental health is being so massively underestimated across newsrooms. It's like, let's pretend it doesn't exist. We have a generation of journalists, mostly males, who think that it's part of your job, you know, be tough. And sometimes they are even discouraging female colleagues to talk about it. We at SME, we managed to get a psychologist online, whom colleagues were able to call. We organized several workshops. We asked psychologists to do workshops with colleagues, and it was really helpful. And I think that that's also a way to admit where we are vulnerable and not pretend that it doesn't do anything all the effects we are getting online with the email. And so our colleagues from the Kutsiak Investigative Center, they monitor these effects. So basically we have statistics and we are able to show and say that yes, attacks are increasing and sometimes from the same email address you are getting really like the attacks every day. Also, I think that it's very important to talk about the troll attacks that are paying, that are organized, and that is very difficult to investigate the source. But today, any politician can order online attack against you. And I think that's, again, a topic we need to discuss in order to have resilience. need to discuss in order to to have resilience thank you very important points hate speech and the support so that was on the ground and now i'm switching to onto again um the european media freedom act i mean that's a framework that should help in these countries um can it how can it do it yeah um under the framework of your previous, what has been changing in your daily life and how do you do it? I just want to be a little bit better. Of course. We are seeing, we are revisiting and upgrading all our security protocols. Just what you were saying. We see it as absolutely needed. It's being done globally. You know also RSF is a global organization. We have colleagues everywhere from Taipei to DC to Rio, etc. Meaning, digital security, it's very complete. Every week checking the spyware with our machine. Just yes or no, doing the check. If there's a doubt going to our digital security lab, checking the security, the tech security, the digital security. Second, psychological security. Really, I can only support what you are saying. There was a slow awareness that there is a need for that, and that it's not like this, and that it needs to be prepared, that it needs to be systematized. And physical security, protection, because online hate, online shitstorms, sorry, can have very concrete and we know violence, physical violence consequences. So protection protocols, all this needs to be upgraded. But beyond that, we need a new, and we've been trying to build in our, just scale, a new playbook. Try to think of a new playbook. We can't solve the situation just saying we need to protect journalists. We need safety for journalists. Of course we do. Of course. But it's not enough. We need to review all our methodology on journalism safety, but we need to do something different. And the type of analysis that we brought forward was to say, look, trust freedom is one thing, but in our world, even if journalists would be independent, media would be independent, journalism would be pushed to the margin of our new global space of information. So let's see the same problem from the side of citizens. The end goal is that citizens can access a plurality of trustworthy media to forge their opinion. So we decided to build on that second pillar. Media freedom, the first, citizens' right to information, i.e. to access a plurality of sources in media, or the other. This is where EMFA comes in. It took three years to build that approach. It was difficult, including because people in Brussels, in the European Parliament, in the Commission, in the Council of Ministers were saying, but you don't need the recognition of the right to access information because it's included in freedom of expression already. You know, freedom of expression is the right to seek, receive and impart information. So everybody was saying to do that, you need to access it. Okay, but it's not because it's implicit that it's effective. And the reality shows, the world reality shows that it has become more and more difficult. In more and more countries it's impossible to access, including in democratic countries and open societies, what many of them, it remains a real challenge. EMFA recognizes for the first time, explicitly the right to information under Article 3. And this is not a magic recipe. It needs to be built, instrumentalized, implemented. Our new pre-book means that even when EMFA was not yet applicable, meaning before 8 August 2025, we started litigating with it before domestic courts. We obtained the suspension of the Google test to cut access for 1% of its audience in France to media, just as an alleged test, before the business court, the Tribunal de Commerce, just using citizens' rights, violation of citizens' rights to access information, ANFA. And we won on that, we won the suspension. It was the first time we litigated on basis of ANFA. So that's a very important, we think, second complementary approach to our previous playbook. The second one is we think media worthy of the name should be and be seen as such. They should show more, not only through the practice of the generalism, which is of course the key pillar, but just more than that. They practice pluralism. They practice ethics. Just explain it on the website. Give it to understand, not only to your audience that is already convinced, but maybe to a broader audience that would look for a difference between your media and the propaganda media. The very difference is very simple. You do it every day. You practice pluralism. We've been working a lot on this in trying to push regulators, the remaining independent ones within the EU, to try to position themselves. Frankly, we find them cowards. We think they don't play their democratic obligations to guarantee free, pluralistic, and especially audiovisual media services obligations. They don't play that game. So we push on that, we litigate on that, and we win. And we win. We won two cases in the French Supreme Court against the French regulators in two years. We just were ready to file the third one to push them to upgrade their behavior and their democracy role. Internal pluralism is not included in AMFA, unlike right to information, unlike requirement for transparency by publishers on ownership in particular, unlike the protection of public service media, unlike the protection of safety alternatives, unlike internal pluralism is not. Internal pluralism is a strange notion. It has different names in different countries. It can be called, well, it has, I won't enter into comparative moment. What it means is just practicing diversity, practicing diversity. What we see more and more are those opinion media, ideological media, not opinion media, ideological media, they are not information media, they claim to be, but they take always the three same topics, basically immigration, foreign threats, and whatever. Wokeness. Sorry? Wokeness. Exactly. And they have always the same panel of the five same people, all thinking the same, and treating the topic the same panel of the five same people, all thinking the same and treating the topic the same way. So zero diversity on what about, who speaks about it, and how they speak about it. Diversity is internal pluralism. And we think this is compulsory by law in a number of countries, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK, under different names. And we think this can make a difference. It's made visible to disqualify those media who pretend to be information media and in fact are not. And give the audience, give citizens a way to make the difference more easy. Third point and last point one and that one very positive about our mindset, the fighting back spirit. I want to conclude just with one very interesting example I think from two days ago. It comes from the US. Back to your previous question. You remember when Trump adopted that executive order to kill USAGM, USA Global Media? You know the holding for Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Voice of America? Whatever you think of those media, they've been practicing actual journalism for more than 300 million people worldwide, and contributing to the plurality of sources of information. So killing them was really tough. We decided for the first time ever to litigate as plaintiff as RSSA in the US, not only RSA USA, RSA International. And we found ourselves with a great judge, a great federal judge. 82 years old, senior judge, Republican, Reagan designated. And that Judge Lambert was and has been, because it continues, mad with the way that Trump administration has been violating the Constitution. For 18 months, he kept giving us, every month, good decisions, disqualifying them. And we said, okay, how long is it going to be? Because we're not even help saving 500 jobs. how long is it going to be? Because it's not even help saving 500 jobs. But then, rather than the answer was given by Congress two days ago, three days ago, when the Congress adopted the bipartisan law to overcome the shutdown. Within that law was a line, a budget line, that was restoring 80% of the funding of USAGM from before the executive order. And we just discussed with VOA, our co-printers, and with the others, our FIRA, etc. They all say that litigation did contribute to change the mindset of some members of the Congress that made the difference for us to come to adopting that law. It's a great story, we need great stories. But when it comes to that point, it just means that we should not let go any piece of space. We should use and fill in the space. Fight back, fight back, fight back. Okay, thank you. I'm looking into the audience. Erhard has one question. Just let me pause right away, but I have one follow-up question, because you mentioned litigation laws and added you told us that the courts in hungary surprisingly for me um judged in favor of media so far um is this an experience you you made this experience is this something you made also so the justice is something we can count on when it comes to press freedom? Yes, I think. I haven't had that experience, but this is what my colleagues tell me and what I just learned from the press. It's interesting for many people outside of Hungary, but the justice system is still more or less independent, I mean, depends on the judges, but Orbán could not completely destroy the justice system. It may come if he is re-elected again, but there were quite many judges who fought back and who fought for their autonomy. Okay, in your country, Beata? There are several examples, I will be personal. I won a lawsuit against one of the trolls who attacked me from an email address, Cremation of Jews, and he sent me messages that I should be hanged because the bullet would be too expensive for my head and that I will be cremated as the Jews should be. And basically the police found him after three years and he got a conditional sentence from the Specialized Criminal Court and I think that's the only journalistic case when journalistic case when they found this harasser and it's an inspiring case for all journalists. But the Supreme Court, as I mentioned, it's already decided against the law targeting NGOs. And also, the courts are very slow in processing some of the lawsuits that are considered slaps, which is negative for the courts because it means that 50 years ago something happened and suddenly I have to go testify. I had no idea what the case is, I have to study, but it really means that these law cases are dragging and they bleed out and usually then the courts just dismiss it. Pavla, Kuczak is one example where it does not work well, but maybe you have others? No, no, no, actually it worked well and I think it's important for you to know I sued the prime minister and I won. And I won. Yeah. And I sued him because he actually did, he posted something on Facebook that was kind of a joke that next time he's going to run for elections, I will collect some dirt on him and I'm paid by Soros and it was supposed to be kind of a joke. But then there were a lot of comments like that I should be, you know, eliminated, I should be killed, I should be be you know eliminated i should be killed i should be you know the cancer is going to eat me and so on and i sued him that he did not moderate the comments and i won and he needed to apologize on a facebook to me and Es ist nicht so wichtig, dass die Regeln, die die öffentlichen Menschen verfolgen, für ihre sozialen Netzwerke und die Moderierung der Kommentare verantwortlich sind. Wenn man also von einigen Faktoren und seinen Kommentaren beschädigt wird, gibt es eine europäische Regelung darüber. Okay, das klingt gut. and his comments, there is a European ruling on it. Okay, that sounds good. Antoine, you... Okay, Erhard Stachy, you would... Okay, I have a related question. Thank you very much for the experiences you have been sharing with us. It's quite admirable and impressive. You have been stressing the importance of going to the source. You don't have to ask the minister who is not willing to give an answer, but go to the source to find the story. This leads immediately to the question of source protection and the editorial confidentiality, the newsroom secrets and so on. Just a few weeks ago in Washington, the home of a journalist of the report of the Washington Post has been raided. The laptop has been taken away and so on by police. There was not an enormous uproar in the United States. Well, they didn't get into the computer. Yeah. United States. Well they didn't get into the computer. Yeah. But on the level of the international observation of reporters without borders, how is it in general with the juridical sector? Is this the prevailing experience as we just have heard now, that there are judges, also you said, that are favorable for press freedom, or isn't it that many of them are standing neutral or sitting on the fence, so to say? Or here in Austria, do you have other experiences where journalists have been fined, and even a stand-up comedian who made fun of politicians has severely been fined by a judge who did not see this as a matter of freedom of expression, but it's inadmissible. I would say in this very difficult situation that you have been describing earlier, would it be necessary to have a kind of alliance with the juridical sector, which is another pillar of the democratic society as it is the free media? Okay, so we have source protection and alliance with... Which source protection? Source protection maybe from... I think we haven't had many brutal cases where the police would have gone after our sources. And the thing is that we are not able to control the intelligence service. And even though, you know, from the European Union perspective, we were, as journalists, we were promised to get more protection for surveillance after the Pegasus files. This is very difficult to execute in countries like Slovakia, where the intelligence service is completely under the control of the government. And basically you have no way, the opposition had no way to control it. So we think that we are protecting our sources, but we don't know how many journalists have their phones stacked. We don't know like how many journalists are being singled out by the intelligence service and followed. And occasionally when there is a leak, then there is a big scandal concerning the case of Jan Pucil, his murder, one of the cases that leaked was that before he was killed, several journalists were monitored and they were actually monitored by police database and the monitorings were were made for the order of the person who is suspected of ordering the murder. So basically, I would say, protect our sources, but we can't tell because of the lack of the control of the intelligence service. I think it's a very similar case in Hungary. Four years ago, there were cases that journalists were spied on with the Pegasus software. Quite a number of them, not just journalists, but also opposition politicians, and one of the guys who owns one of the biggest critical media empire, his phone was also hacked, but then there was no consequence basically on that. So I guess the government is probably using the intelligence services to try to find out who the sources are, especially in a country which is very closely centralized, or government is very closely centralized around organs. So it's interesting that previously there were very few leaks from the government because politicians just didn't feel like talking or leaking information to the media. Very few did that. So I think Orbán was not very much preoccupied with that. But this is changing, I think, as we're moving closer to the elections. And Orbán is seemingly behind the opposition party in the polls so everybody is like you know speculating who will be the first one from the leading party from the government party to jump out or to kind of you know be open to the opposition or give out secrets but that's not that's not happening at the moment. Not yet, Pasha. I know. Yeah, regarding protection of sources in Slovakia, I have a personal story to tell. I was taken for interrogation to Slovakia from Czech Republic after murder of Jan Kuciak, and the police asked me to give up my phone. So I said no, and they said well we actually have prosecutors order so we will take your phone and I said well I'm not going to give it and they said well then we will give you a fine up to 1,500 euros and we will still take the phone because we have all the legal papers that enable us to take your phone so actually we are not really protected as a journalist and we have no way how to protect our sources if this is the thing because the law as it is written it doesn't, it's very old, it doesn't consider phone a small computer. So yeah, it actually doesn't consider that we have an email or encrypting, chatting messengers on our phones. So it's just, you know, like- Do you think it's on purpose that they didn't update it or is it just chaos in the- No, I think it's on purpose. And what Paola is saying, or is it just chaos in the... No, I think it's on purpose and what Paola is saying, it shows that maybe today they no longer need taking the phone because they have access to... Yeah, that was quite a horrible thing. It's a great discussion on sources protection, on how much EMFA remains to be implemented and domesticated. I mean, it's a very new belief, it's not idealistic, but Article 4 offers a better protection that many domestic growths in the EU, even though it's not ideal, but it's better, including with prior judicial, not prosecutorial, judicial authorization in exceptional case where investigation on very serious limited crime, number of crimes would allow blah blah blah. Well that's a real challenge for us, citizens, that the EMFA, the European Media Freedom Act, the first ever EU Act protecting media freedom and safety of journalists and right to information, be implemented. It is our law. Since 8 August last year, it is opposable in Austrian courts. It is opposable in Austrian courts. We can refer to it. Now, of course, some provisions need to be specified into domestic law. So it's for domestic parliaments and governments. But it's a good illustration. We have a tool. We have more potential muscles there. And about your question on alliance with judiciary, an independent judiciary does not ally with anyone. So the question is for us in resorting to them. We should resort to them, but not because the judicial result is the goal. The goal is the legislative or political change in law practice. Maybe in that way, resorting to the judge is a good tactic. Now it depends a lot. I was referring to Judge Navarro in D.C. previously. I can refer to the problem we've had within the EU in mitigating a criminal case against Twitter because it had favored the spreading of war propaganda by criminals instrumentalizing RSF and us as RSF leaders. If you look at Twitter on some media accounts, millions views, you can refer to me as a Kremlin war propagandist. And for the time being, we've been failing in imposing on Twitter to delete this, instrumentalizing my image, my pictures, attributing me words that I never said, and putting this in a criminal that does it. It's a fake BBC video or whatever. It's the Matryoshka scheme, you know, that the MFA spokesperson in Moscow refers to that disinformation, loungers the disinformation, and then it's propelled by retreats by Russian embassies etc. It goes everywhere. We know all this very well. And Twitter is just immune for that meaning. We play it by the book of the essay, ineffective. So we decided to go to the court, criminal court, because it's a criminal offense under so many laws, for the time being, useless. Some prosecutors won't, others don't want, another one says, oh yeah, and I super, yes, it's very important, it's about capturing not only the public narrative, the space of information, but even from us. So here it fails. But again, finishing with a good example. Thank you. Ukraine Prosecutor General, Ukraine Prosecutor General, since 24 February 22, moved from from zero case on crimes against journalists to, to date, 127 prosecutorial investigations on crimes against journalists. And this includes targeting snipers, shooting, targeting hotels used by journalists near the frontline, material of course, arbitrary detention, deportation and torture, and the drone scheme, the most recent one, targeting journalists with drones. So it means in doing that, that the Ukrainian prosecutor general in Ukraine is a world champion in sectioning, trying to sanction crimes against journalists. And it's a good example when there is willingness and ability. The ability was not for granted, but in four years they've been working a lot, including with cooperation. And my very last word is about cooperation. We opened, as the rest of us, an office in Prague, as you know. We opened, we have changed our organization in Europe. We are here in Vienna thanks to our friends from the Austrian section. We want to change the whole way of doing things because we do need increased cooperation, interaction, working together. This is our deep belief that we need to confront those challenges including doing that. So we also have a playbook that's good to hear. We promise to engage with you, so are there any comments and questions? Perfect, two women, I love that. Thank you, my name is Liliana Tomic, my youth, I used to be a journalist, and now I curate and moderate seminars in Vienna on politics and media. And a lot of Hungarian and Slovak journalists are my speakers and my audience. Now I have a very provocative question. Do you know your people? Do you know your countries and do you know your citizens? When I became a journalist and war reporter in a country of my origin, I'm from Serbia, but I worked for El Pais. I didn't even know where certain places were. I'm from Belgrade. And I had to look at a map when some fronts opened. Is it 10 kilometers away, 100 kilometers away, or 500 kilometers away? My question is, hey, do you know their countries? U.S. media did not know their country when they were covering Trump and the elections for the first time. And nor did the British media when they were covering Trump and the elections for the first time. And nor did the British media when they were covering Brexit. So do you know your countries? Who reads this independent media? Only in Budapest, in Bratislava and in Prague. Who reads you? Third question is for you, Edith. What will change if TISA wins? Will be there any major changes? How much time we have? We have to get together afterwards. Yeah, that is that for the time being. Okay, thank you very much. Very good question. Maybe we take the next one also and then we make a vow together. There was a lady in the back. The problems that you have explained to us and the situation with propaganda and disinformation and disorientation and the use of social media and propaganda and twitter and all these are the signs of intelligence operations going on and behind these operations is primarily Russia but they have echo pieces in many countries they also have echo pieces in Austria countries they also have a company in Austria and what we can do is to do research and to always be aware of the tactics how intelligence agencies try to mislead you it is called a red herring so you follow the red herring and you think you have found out something but behind the thing you really perhaps had found out, there is a bigger and greater truth. So there's always the danger of being misled just because you do research, because you know how to do research and to investigate, but it is necessary to be aware of this, not to give up and to think more of connections between countries and patterns. For example, if you think of, there is a Czech enterprise called Saskapoma and now Almu and they at the same time took over the gaming and lottery sector in the UK and in Austria. And in the UK, some people began to research and they found out that they cooperate with Gazprom and with Russian banks. Another example is that in Hungary, if you get a state contract, you must have been in favor of Viktor Orban. One of the companies who gets state contracts is Austrian Sparagd. Sparagd is linked to Oleg Deribaska and to Raiffeisen, which is also a Russian bank. And so we have all these connections and if you watch Austrian media, if they interview former chancellors who have been on Russian supervisory boards, there's never ever any question concerning their complicity with the Kremlin. We have to look at such things and we have to connect it. And then, for example, if you know that in the UK, for example, former KGB officers, you could find out that these former KGB officers are also tied in other Western countries. If we connect such details, we get the pattern and we are better defended against Russian subversion and Russian covert operations. Thank you very much. That was the importance of doing network journalism, cross-country journalism. And the first question, how good do you know your country? Oh, one more, okay. So we take this also and then we go on, thank you. My question is a little bit shorter, worse. My question is for Edith, you know time mostly. It's about the subtleness of these methods that Orban uses. You've mentioned that there are no journalists in prison, there's no plastic censorship, and it's mostly subtle measures that he takes to control, to capture the media. So how important is the subtleness and how could it be possible to lay open, to call out the subtle methods that he uses? Thank you. Okay, thank you. So maybe Edith, you start because there was a lot of ungainly focus questions yeah thank you for this very important question about whether we know our country and i think that's a lesson to be learned for everybody here uh that we will live in a capital city uh and we have our echo chambers we have our friends who probably think the way we think we have a family who goes the same way we do but there is a whole world outside and you have to go out and I think for quite some time Hungarian media was very centralized in Budapest, but I think not anymore because they they already paid a price after the four elections we had or the three elections. They were all very hopeful that there is going to be a change but then it turned out that they had absolutely no idea how the country thinks. So Telex for example, this news site, they are having correspondence in many cities in Hungary and many of those people really go out to the villages. When I worked at Nîmes-Savace, which was like in the Stone Age probably, we had not only foreign correspondence, which is the other leg of being important, but local correspondents in at least like five, six places in the country who had the task and the obligation to go out to research local stories, to talk to people and to have an idea what the hell is going on there. Orwell was very smart because he took over all the local newspapers. So basically, all the local regional newspapers, which are usually very important in Germany, in Austria, because they are read by the people in the regions. I mean, they don't read the national papers They are read by the people in the regions. I mean, they don't read the national papers because they want to know what's happening in their community. So all those papers are converted into harsh government propaganda papers. And that also made an effect on the public there. They got their information only from those channels. And even if you think critically, if you live in a community which is like bombarded with anti-migration messages and narrative and anti-Ukrainian messages, there comes a time when you feel affected. Even the words you use are the words that you get from the propaganda media. It's terrible, but sometimes I even feel myself influenced by what I read in government propaganda media, because I have to read that just to have an idea where they are going to. So I think it's a crucial point to go out, to talk to people and accept that there are people who think differently, who don't belong to your bubble and treat even those people respectfully. To say that everybody who votes for Fidesz is a brainwashed lunatic, even if you tend to think sometimes like that, but this is not your job to decide as a journalist. Be there, question them. Be there and let them speak. What are they afraid of and you know after a while you can give them feedback and maybe have a decent conversation i think what's the most problematic point in our societies is is this polarization that we no longer are able to talk to each other because we think you know okay now that's a crazy person i'm not going to talk to him we we try to convince each other uh instead of accepting that there are differences of opinions uh and you know this disrespect this tolerance this is somehow you know we we don't have that anymore um and this would be, I think, a role of a public media, a good working public media, to have those voices and to have a civilized conversation. So that was, I probably went too long. Who reads? Who reads the independent newspapers? We basically have everything online. So everybody has the chance to read those news sites. Some are beyond the paywall after a certain number of stories so it's also a financial thing if you are able to afford it. But it comes down again to this echo chamber thing that it's there online. I mean telex is free for everybody to read online. Whether you read it or not or whether you opt for the government propaganda, that's not for me to decide. So I think what we can do, we can offer our information but we cannot force people to read our newspapers if they don't want to. That has to go down to education probably, to make young people understand that it's important to make young people understand that it's important to read different sources of information and trustful sources of information and ask the questions whether I can trust that information source. And what happens if Modjar wins? if Magyar wins. I think there is gonna be a purge of the public media. He already said that, that he wants to restore the public media. Yeah, I mean just get rid of the people who did propaganda for the past 10 years, and I can absolutely understand that. It's gonna be difficult for the critical media, because on the one hand, we all hope for a change of government, but Moyer is a difficult person, and he is learning, but he doesn't like to be criticized well you know he comes from this he does environment he went a long way away from that community but you know here sorry yeah so And marriage as well. Sorry? Anti-dismarriage. Yeah. So I am hopeful that the media, the critical media will be there to criticize him as well, if he and the new government make mistakes. But it's not going to be easy. But it's not just about the media. It's this whole overhaul of the society and the institutions after 16 years. And we see that in Poland that it's not an easy task to do. So a lot happens on the victory, if he wins, and how many votes he will have, and how big this victory will be. If he's defeated, then we are stuck with this system, and it will be even worse. But my worries are not in the media when he wins but in many other sectors. I'm sorry about that. No, it was a very nice to you but to myself because I always speak too much and these questions already trigger a stream of thoughts. But yeah, we started the soul searching 10 years ago and then Facebook happened. I mean, we already at the time when fascists were about to get to parliament, we really started asking ourselves if we know our readers. And in the case of my publication, half of the nation reads SMAC. But the truth is that 73% of the digitally active population gets the news from Facebook. And it goes to what already was mentioned, unless the European Union is able to put more pressure on platforms and get more regulation, we can invest so much into more quality journalism and we can learn more and more about our readers, but we are losing to the platforms because they are the ones where most people today get their information and the platforms decide the order, then decide the frequency, how our links or our information is being served to many leaders, especially the younger generation. And this is something which will be a game changer in how we are able to sustain our work as journalists and already the media freedom act we are just catching the train I mean we are trying to react to what happened in Hungary. But if you think that technology is much faster, we already should be thinking how we are responding to the artificial intelligence, its use, how ER creators are coming up with new ideas, how to use space recognition, how to you know you use face recognition how to use like like you know all language models we are still behind in coming up with new codes of ethics how journalists are going to use uh artificial intelligence so yes i think it's it's important to know our readers, but even more important is to know where we are heading through our channels and how the ecosystem of the information consumption is changing. And unless we are able to make those who decide, and in that case the European Union, because that's the only relevant force to negotiate with platforms, we are able to put enough pressure on them to help us media, then it's only very small change we are able to make by stretching our operation to the regions. Also, technology tells you so much about your readers. And it's also a danger because media, based on all the data they get about the readership habits, starts tailor-mating content for different groups of readers. So it's a very important question but I just wanted to put into place that the game is being decided at a very different level. Pabla, do you want to say anything about how good you know the readers? Well, I was not born in Prague and I didn't grow up in Prague. My deputy, she was not born in Prague and didn't grow up in Prague. Same goes for my colleagues. So yeah, I think I know, or we as a team, we know our country pretty well. Last Monday, from concentrations, last Monday we sued the French government for failing to adapt French law to the European Freedom Act and we consider this responsibility, legal responsibility for failing to do so. It's the first in the EU, we will develop this in other countries, EMFA, for the first time about concentrations, imposes on states to have a control of the consistency between concentrations in the media and respect for editorial independence. This had never been the law before. Before that, there is a law on concentration versus fair competition. It needs not to be unfair, so it can be used, but it's difficult. EMFA brings something new in that field, yet, and I will be here I fully agree all this is running after the train running after the train we think in Brussels we need to be back in driving the train and there is a possibility for this still ending on a positive note the Danish presidency ended in November in the Council of Ministers of Culture with very good conclusions Hungary did not join so of course so it's conclusion of the presidency with 25 because Slovakia did not join so 25 but very good conclusions on what we've been discussing here, and including one word that we're pushing a lot for that, which is the word prominence. Prominence. What does it mean? It means that trustworthy media, media, it's crazy to have to say towards media right but in fact media call themselves media whereas they are propaganda media so we need to make a difference it means that tortures in media need to be more accessible to be made more accessible to citizens that's all that's all then for citizens to have a choice. Again, an issue also of competition, because the system of algorithms, the way it works, is by design unfair competition against media. So just to remediate this, those conclusions from Denmark have been put as the top priority for the current Cyprus presidency. In any case this year, there will be again an opportunity to have this turned into law, a new law, because it's not in EMFA, it's not in DSA, it's a revision of a directive, the Autonomous Media Services Directive. Anyway, it's too slow, but it's slow to get control of the locomotive. This is actually the goal and it's a long journey. All right. You want to add something? Yeah, because I think I forgot to answer to the question about the subtle. Subtleness. Just very shortly. The subtle I use in a sense that they are not pushing down independent media in a violent way, but they are actually building their own media. So they have so much money that they build up their own private media environment with people who are actually not journalists, but propagandists. But you know, there is so much money there that I'm surprised that a lot of young people are willing to join them as influencers, as propagandists, and they're not only building up their alternative media, but also those pseudo think tanks, not just in Hungary, but all around in Europe with massive money, massive Hungarian taxpayers' money, by the way, my money, building up the Matthias Corvinus College, which actually bought a university here in Austria. They are in Brussels. So it's not just the media where they invest, but all those like think tank or foreign institutes to shape the narrative. So this is also part of their culture war strategy. And this is kind of a subtle or not so subtle way to control the narrative. Very important point. So at this point I would like to, you know, we promised you that we will be for about two hours here on the podium. I have one little very quick last round a question for you and then we would like to invite you to for further talks um uh in a more informal um way my last please please don't forget the and the guidance and the guided yes you you will have you will have to explain it there is a guided tour of the press um picture exhibition but very quick, my last round for you please. Five minutes more concentration, you are an amazing audience, so concentrated, and you are also an amazing round here. Your country in 2035. What will it look like, the press situation? Just one or two sentences, a brief prognosis or outlook. Can I have a scenario A and B? Yes, of course. Okay, so there's a scenario A, when Orban stays in power. I think in that case, we would be like a colony of Russia I think in that case, we would be like a colony of Russia out of the EU and most of the young people are already leaving the country. So that's gonna be a very sad story. The scenario B, I'm pretty much optimistic that there is a resilience in the media and there is a critical spirit in the young generation. It's not going to be easy, especially with all the artificial intelligence in the online sphere, to figure out what's true and what's false. But I think that's a learning process. And I have an 18-year-old daughter. I'm pretty hopeful that they will learn how to deal with with the media and they will find out what to trust. Can we rewind things? Yeah, I was counting like how old I will be and if I still be a journalist. You never stop being a journalist when you are a journalist. I've been a journalist for 32 years, so hopefully I can go on for 10 more years. And I think my answer was, I already said in my previous entry, it very much depends on our ability to regulate the platforms. And also our ability to make the young generation to read news. And that's a challenge, that's the biggest challenge. And I think no newsroom yet has the answer. I know Washington Post is experimenting with TikTok videos for the young. And I know I am not answering your question. I'm just saying that if we don't manage to involve the young generation, it might happen that in many newsrooms there will be these three minute short videos and the huge lack of investigation because you cannot be investigating three minute video. But I am also optimistic that independent media will survive. I mean, in Slovakia we survived Vladimir Medger, we are surviving Robert Vico, we are surviving Penta. So I hope that we will survive. Well, nine years, it's an interesting time span. I think it's gonna be pretty much much the same but it's going to be even more personalized so people will get their own media and the one that's going to be printed on a paper it's going to be some kind of a luxury item like you know there will be Louis Vuitton, and then there will be a newspaper stand, and only the rich people who would have time and free Sundays would go and buy it and make it a little coffee. But I think at the same time, nine years, it's not that much. And I think it will stay pretty much the same. it will stay pretty much the same. France, in the next nine years, it's one and a half, it's next year. Even less than one and a half, it's a presidential election. One option, again two options, one option, no more public audiovisual media, it would be privatized. Mainly audiovisual opinion media, presenting themselves as information media. And unabated social networks and platforms just feeling divide. And my fear is something that may look like civil war because it's already extremely violent, extremely divided and including physically violent. So that's one scenario and it's possible. It's part of the programs of some political platforms. The alternative is a big law on right to information that has been validated by the, with an advisory opinion by the French administrative framework, that results from what we call the process of the Right to Information Convention, which was a public institution slash citizen process that we succeeded in having initiated. And then it would be a law that would look like EMFAR, but a bit more than EMFAR. And it would be very new because it will put together heritage from the two current lois one from 1986 and the other one from 1881 so it's no long long long practice and tradition that needs to be renewed and reviewed and possibly it may be another, an alternative, and hopefully, well, in case of which one I'm terrible. Okay. Edith, Beate, Pavla, and Antoine, thank you very much. Maybe applause. Martin, give the instructions for now.